Evaluation and usability as a practice area has diversified its approaches, broadened the spectrum of
UX issues it addresses, and extended its contribution into deeper levels of product-development decision
making. This forum addresses conceptual, methodological, and professional issues that arise in the
field’s continuing effort to contribute robust information about users to product planning and design.
David Siegel and Susan Dray, Editors
Breaking Down Barriers:
The Interdependence of
Research and Design
Laura Dove
The Mathworks, Inc. | laura.dove@mathworks.com
Arathi Sethumadhavan
Medtronic, Inc. | arathi.sethumadhavan@medtronic.com
November + December 2012
interactions
An unfortunate polarization of
research and design is becoming
the norm in the practice of user
experience (UX). Not too long ago
the “us and them” mentality was
reserved for interactions among
usability, sales, marketing, and
software-development colleagues.
Somehow this schismatic attitude
has also started to appear between
UX researchers and designers. This
forum is a plea to both UX researchers and UX designers to build and
maintain a more collaborative
approach for the benefit of our customers and users.
We decided to write this article
while we were working at the
same medical device company, to
share our experience of benefiting
from collaboration—and of providing more value to our project as
a result. Specifically, the stories
shared here are about the design
process benefiting from the mutual
input of seasoned researchers and
thoughtful designers.
In our experience, most UX
professionals have stronger skills
in either research or design. We
come to the field from two
somewhat different back-
grounds: Laura entered the UX
domain 15 years ago with a degree
in studio art, and Arathi has a
background in experimental psy-
chology. Although we bring dif-
ferent talents, we both appreciate
learning from each other and pass-
ing the benefits of this collabora-
tion along to our project teams.
What Gets in Our Way?
To get some perspective on what’s
currently happening in our field,
we started thinking about
how much has changed
over the past 10
years. Many
readers
might
